GMB departments - what is the setup

[MickEdwards]

Without duplicating i'm looking at a similar setup to this thread

There is a marine business that has within it 3 distinct departments, Sales & brokerage, marina and shipyard all within the same location but with unique telephone numbers grouped into sections on the website with the unique numbers.  I'm clarifying whether there are genuine distinct customer facing locations for each department.  We want to create department pages because each one has unique opening hours.

However looking at this I have some questions i'm unsure about.

• Each department has a unique landline number that routes through to the main switchboard when called, does that matter?
• The departments kind make the idea of a core G+ page, map page redundant because there are only 3 areas of the business and the departments handle that.  So can you have just departments, or should we set up the main 'hub' page as the brand page, linking to 3 departments?
• Where can I find information on how to correctly set up a department so the connection/hierarchy is in place? Looking around I can't find any instructions.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Michael,

Yes, these are always head-scratchers. There are always a ton of nuances. So, let's start with the basics: Google's guidelines, which read:

• Individual practitioners and departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government buildings may have separate pages. See specific guidelines about individual practitioners and departments for more information.

• Departments within other business, universities, or institutions

  Departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government institutions may have their own listings on Google.

  Publicly-facing departments that operate as distinct entities should have their own page. The exact name of each department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments. Typically such departments have a separate customer entrance and should each have distinct categories. Their hours may sometimes differ from those of the main business.

  • Acceptable (as distinct listings):
    • "Walmart Vision Center"
    • "Sears Auto Center"
    • "Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Dermatology"
  • Not acceptable (as distinct listings):
    • The Apple products section of Best Buy
    • The hot food bar inside Whole Foods Market

  For each department, the category that is the most representative of that department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments.

• The main business "Wells Fargo" has the category "Bank" whereas the department "Wells Fargo Advisors" has the category "Financial Consultant"

• The main business "South Bay Toyota" has the category "Toyota Dealer" whereas the "South Bay Toyota Service & Parts" has the category "Auto Repair Shop" (plus the category "Auto Parts Store")

• The main business "GetGo" has the category "Convenience Store" (plus the category "Sandwich Shop") whereas the department "GetGo Fuel" has the category "Gas Station", and the department "WetGo" has the category "Car Wash"

So, in a nutshell, Google says that these different departments TYPICALLY have a unique customer entrance and unique categories. So, that's the first thing you have to look at for your client. Are there genuinely different doorways (or at least different front desks like in an auto dealership) that the consumer encounters? And, do unique primary categories exist for each business? If not, post-Possum, your listings are likely to get filtered out anyway if you create more than one of them, leaving just one of the departments visible at the automatic zoom level of Google Maps.

Google, you'll notice, makes zero mention of phone numbers in their explanation of department listings, but, elsewhere in the guidelines they do state:

Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible, and provide one website that represents your individual business location.

• Use a local phone number instead of central, call center helpline number whenever possible.
• Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or "refer" users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business, including pages created on social media sites.
• The phone number must be under the direct control of the business.

So, Google doesn't like call centers, and from one Local SEO to another, I would strongly advise that you have a unique phone number for any listing you create (to prevent possible conflation of multiple listings) and that the number connects directly to the department being listed, not to a call center.

Hope these tips are helpful. Please don't hesitate to ask if you have further questions. As I've mentioned, there are so often peculiar nuances to this particular scenario.

[JoyHawkins]

I'm not sure it makes sense for you to set up multiple listings for a marina because there aren't distinct categories you can use for each listing. If you use "marina" on all of them, that will cause them all to compete against each other and they won't rank the way you'd want them to.

What would you want the sales one to show up for on Google?  What were you planning on using for the category? I can't think of a distinct search that would be typed in by someone to designate they want sales specifically.  Departments are really only an option or good idea if you have different categories that match.

[MickEdwards]

Hi Miriam, thanks for the reply.

There is a main reception where the customer is directed to the department they require.  Typically the services required cross over but they are really unique to each other and have clear working areas - the customer goes to a specific location for their requirements.  The problem is that as an excellent customer service the business will bend over backwards and may serve them from the start position if they can, rather than sending them to the different offices.

The problem I have then is that I don't know how Google will perceive a central switchboard that all the direct telephone numbers redirect back to?  Although I see Google says "...whenever possible."

[MickEdwards]

Hi Joy,

there are several aspects to the business and there are indeed identifiable departments.  They could be chosen from Marine Engineer, Yacht Broker, Marina, Shipyard and so on.

[JoyHawkins]

Oh, well in that case then I think you should be fine provided they don't overlap.  I copied a list of descriptions for the categories before MapMaker shut down so you can check this out if you are trying to figure out which one should go where.  You can see them here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_4yjYPVk0BFcaWHxUsmbObw8epJm-cXx-ZQstCE_byg/edit?usp=sharing

Each department would have its own listing on Google Maps if you set them up individually. There isn't a way to link them unless one is inside the other.

I would only suggest bothering with a G+ brand page for the entire company if you guys have a large customer base on G+ that would enable your posts to get +1s, shares, comments etc.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Michael,

Yes, Google does say "whenever possible", so this is one of those things where you could possibly decide that there isn't a huge risk in the redirecting numbers, but it would make me a bit uneasy. For one thing, there have been numerous documented incidents of Google calling businesses. If the switchboard receptionist answers "Happy Sailboats" or "Happy Sailboats Marina" instead of "Happy Sailboats Shipyard" this can actually trigger a red flag about the accuracy with which you're representing the business name/s on the Google My Business listings. So, just so you know, there is some risk whenever you don't stick to Google stated preferences to the letter. How big a risk? Hard to say. The risk-free way would be for the business to change its phone system if having 3 GMB listings is deemed important enough, so that each department answers its own phone directly.

I'd also build a really strong landing page for each of the 3 departments and link the GMB listings to them.

Or, in the end, the business may decide to simply marketing itself with a single GMB listing, which is also risk-free but could miss out on the opportunity of ranking for the wider variety of categories the department approach can cover.